Encounter 5: The Descent
<-Chūnin Exams Main Arahitogami reaches the belltower, but quickly finds the insects inside his body going haywire. Some begin to have convulsions, others feel as though they are waging war against his body in some desperate bid to escape. His body is wracked with pain, and, doubling over, he vomits. Clutching his shaking arms, he flips onto his side, arching his back and wailing in pain. The deep, subsonic frequencies of the bell toll over and over, and with every rumbling oscillation they drive Arahitogami closer to self-destruction. This is the sight that Yumiko sees as she cautiously approaches the belltower. A lone genin, like her, in the throes of excruciating pain. ----- Yumiko locates the bell tower quite easily with its constant ringing. She has her bow lowered as she walks into the door, which she presumed would lead to the top of the tower. Before she could open the door, Yumiko hears agonizing wails coming from nearby. She walks slowly towards the noise, which was almost as loud as the bell itself. The body of a boy that looked to be about her age. She assumed it was another genin who'd fallen to another team. "Oi, prey. What's your problem?" She says calmly as she stands over him. She looks down on him with a distasteful look. The bell tolls once again, beginning to annoy Yumiko indescribably. She turns her attention to the swinging bell moving to and fro in the tall tower. She backs away from the writhing boy on the ground and aims her bow directly at the rope connecting the bell to the roof. Letting the arrow fly, it rips through the threaded material with ease, dislodging the bell from its position and sending it crashing down through the tower. The ringing in his body ceased, the small reservoirs of his bugs ceasing from moving in his body. He was alive again..he wasn't dying. He opened his eyes, his vision blurry, but slowly returning. The blurs revealed colors at first, then shapes, then molds, and finally people. Before him was a young girl, perhaps around his age, with a notable pink ponytail. Dyed? No, natural. He could tell simply by looking. "Y-You, stopped the bell from ringing?", he inquired, his voice weak. He glanced down at her bow. Yep, she had shot it down with her arrow. "T-Thank you!", he sincerely stated. He pushed himself off of the ground, taking his time. His legs were weak, his head ached, his vision was still a bit fuzzy. "You aren't here for me, right?", he inquired. Yumiko turns her head to see the boy rise from his earlier squirming. "Yeah, no problem." She said, placing her bow on her back along with her quiver and wondering why he was essentially having a seizure only seconds before. "And no, I'm not here for you. As a matter of fact, I lost my team and headed here, trying to escape. But what I want to know is, why were you going crazy a few seconds ago." She walked towards him and folded her arms, waiting for an answer. Though she wasn't here for him, Arahitogami realized that genin were his enemy, at least down here. He couldn't afford to reveal all of his abilities to anyone, however, she seemed a tad bit different. She too had lost her team, maybe she was eaten by the beast too? No, he would've seen her on his way out. Something else might have caused her to lose her team. I guess, Arahitogami thought. Rationality told him to hide his powers, but his heart told him to speak the truth. In a battle between the mind and the heart, the heart should always win, for it is the instinct, untainted by experiences. He would follow his heart. "I host a breed of insects in my body. Well, small amounts, just backups. Mainly, the larvae and once they grow up, they go into here..", Arahitogami said, tapping his two mobile nest. "I summon the bugs from within my body and put them here once they have reached adulthood, which happens pretty quickly, but not before they can lay more eggs within me. Just in case these mobile nest are destroyed, I have backups in my body, you know? But even then, I have backup mobile nest and backup backup mobile nest..I keep a lot of bugs", Arahitogami simply completed, stopping himself from rambling on. "But, well, I lost my squad too. So, how about we travel together, you know? Well, it'll be fine if you don't want to, but I won't harm you", he stumbled, stuttering over his words just a bit. "I like your hair..whut?", he continued, looking a bit confused, surprised at his own words. Dude was REALLY socially awkward, training and all, isolated from others of his kind didn't really work out too well for him. Yumiko zones out a bit after hearing "bugs", being reminded of the spider creatures from before. Looking back at the bell tower, she scales it and searches for any structural damage before advancing towards it. "Hey Bug Boy!" She calls over her shoulder. "I suggest you follow me. Since you want to team up and apparently like my hair." The tower entrance seems to have been blown off of its hinges by the force of the crash. Walking through the threshold, Yumiko looks straight to see the easily fifteen meter drop that the bell came through. "Well, damn, that's a bit farther than I thought." ----- The various granite pews, raised altar and ornate architecture reveal this building was some form of religious center for the ancient community. Hieroglyphs and recessed inscriptions seem to indicate that the people of this dead city once worshipped... perfection? It's strange, but it's almost as though they believed a great force was protecting them from harm. Numerous circles and disks are repeated throughout, often employing the use of lightning to strike down their foes. The altar itself was probably a beautiful piece of art made from black marbled granite, but sadly a massive iron bell has shattered it in half. The skeletonized remains of an ancient corpse lie scattered about the chamber. Also scattered about, are hundreds of food packages and containers. It appears this building had been inhabited very recently. Three hammocks lie in one corner of the room, along with some empty crates. Various copper wires and antenna also lie scattered, as though whoever was here had left in a hurry. A table is set up at one end of the room with a radio transceiver, with a jury-rigged antenna made from wire attached to it. Bits of bent wire lie in a heap next to it. A button on the display is flashing repeatedly. Wires seem to exit and enter the transceiver in a haphazard pattern. A few connect to a few crates underneath the table. ----- Looking back down from her marveling, Yumiko notices the multitudes of supplies that filled the tower. She saunters over to the stacks of supplies and kneels down, examining each of the cases. Over to her side, she could see bodies, or what was left of them, scattered around on the floor. She turns her attention back to the supplies as she grabs multiple food packages and shoves them into her bag. "Don't just stand their, Bug Boy. Get over here and stock up." "Oh, well, okay if you say so", Arahitogami said, approaching the supplies. Approaching one of the corpses, he took the backpack from its side, as he had lost his during his little encounter with that creature. Unzipping it, it was plentiful with food, tools, weapons of all sorts. Inside of the bad were granola bars, ramen, good packages, soup, tea, and other goods that were ready to be devoured. In addition were traditional ninja medications, antidotes, some drugs, ration pills and other tools such as scrolls, shuriken, kunai, wires, the basic stuff. "Wow, well, this guy was prepared. I wonder what happened to someone so.....ready?", Arahitogami inquired, looking at the lifeless corpse. Something didn't speak right with him. "Hey, so, where are we going after this?" A close examination of the three bodies reveals that they are genin. Among their belongings is a scroll of earth. Each bares signs of physical trauma, such as bruises and cuts. Two have died of stab wounds, and the third appears to have been suffocated if the hand-shaped bruises on her neck are any indication. "We're gonna-" Sifting through the collection of materials was a fruitful idea as Yumiko does a double take, spotting a cylinder-shaped object resting underneath the hands of the deceased genin. She slowly reaches for the object, weary of the genin as if they would move at any moment. She slips the cylinder out, dusting off its surface to reveal writing. Using the dim light from the outside coming into the bell tower, she reads the scroll. "Earth" she says in her mind. "Change of plans. We're going to check this place out. There's got to be some valuable stuff in here." She says while eagerly searching through the tower. A flashing light catches her eye as she looks back and forth. "Hey Bug Boy, I think I got something." She calls, motioning for him to follow. "What do you think it is?" "Bug Boy?", Arahitogami said, his tone expressing that he was obviously confused. "Oh, that's me, I see. Well, that's a bomb", he calmly stated, shuffling through his pack more. "I thought we already knew that. My bugs told me the instant we got down here. They're really really helpful in that regard. Good thing they can smell well.." Arahitogami stood up, walking over to the crate. Brushing the dust off of the crate, he scanned for opening, finding a small slit in the wooden box. "Alright, great!". Forming the Seal of Confrontation, a seal that , his bee-beetle insects appeared instantaneously, before ones eye could even recognize their presence. They entered the small slit. "I'm having them deactivate the bomb, so we can use it later. We might need it. From what I experienced, anything is possible down here.." Yumiko takes a few steps back as a swarm of bugs surrounds the bomb. "Don't set it off. If we die, I'll kill you." She says coldly. Folding her arms, she walks over to the fallen bell and examines the broken altar. The symbols upon the walls were intriguing. "Whoa..." She says as she touches the walls. "What do these mean?" Arahitogami's insects make quick work of the activation mechanisms of the explosives, and quickly disable them, leaving the room and the transceiver intact. Arahitogami quickly stores the roughly 150 lbs of military-grade plastic explosives in a sealing scroll. Yumiko's hands leave odd discolorations in the surface of the engravings, which quickly disappear. It seems as though the granite material was infused with some kind of temperature-sensitive minerals.